In this hypercritical age, when materialistic science dominates the public thought of the West, there is a tendency to attribute all inner experiences which are out of the ordinary to the imagination or to some pathological condition of the brain and nervous system of the organism. But after knowing and reading the accounts of experience, which, in the main,as far as they go, coincide with the experiences of the Masters and their students, let us ask one or two pertinent questions.
It will be admitted by psychologists that all experiences due to pathological conditions or to abnormal imagination, superinduced by suggestion or autosuggestion, must fall within the range of that person's past experiences, or of suggestions made to him, or within his inherited tendencies. He can never see, hear or otherwise experience anything totally foreign to his own past history or to some combination of such experiences. Nothing entirely new can be introduced into the experience.
After reading the accounts of these inner experiences, let us ask how we are to account for such vast and sudden increase of knowledge never before possessed or even heard of by the individuals, or even known to any of their ancestors. Also, how are we to account for such intense joy, the like of which no mortal ever feels in a lifetime of usual routine? How are we to account for a vision of things, of beauties and glories such as no mortal ever saw on this earth-things which cannot even be described in human language? These and many other points involved may well be considered by the investigator.
The Masters teach that such experiences are superinduced by reality, in actual worlds lying on a plane higher and finer than our earth, planes quite beyond the grasp of material science. They are just as real, however-aye, much more real than the routine phenomena of earthly life. When a soul, even in the smallest degree, separates itself from this dull earth, it rises into realms of unimaginable beauty, joy and light. And with that holy vision comes an understanding so all-comprehensive that the soul is lost in wonder.
The student, contemplating this path, should let the very idea of inner worlds and inner experiences of supramundane reality sink into his consciousness. Let him remember that our common everyday worldly sight and worldly understanding are at best only feeble reflections of the sublime reality which lies within, in an endless series of finer worlds. Then let him hold fast in his mind the practical fact that such higher and finer worlds may be entered and possessed by the student while he still lives in his present body. Let us not sell this birthright for a mess of pottage.
Those devotees of the Church have been able to do no more than to enter the outer borderlands of those higher worlds, while the real Masters pass at will above those borderlands and go on up to the supreme heights. And they do all of this by a definite scientific method, while religionists are working under a great handicap because they have no well-defined method. Most of them just
'happen onto' their experiences by force of their love and devotion but without knowledge of the Way. Also, in marked contrast with these sporadic and haphazard experiences of the religionists, the saints and their disciples have complete control over their inner experiences, being able to come and go at will, to remain on those upper regions as long as they wish, and to return to them
whenever they desire. This is a vital difference.
whenever they desire. This is a vital difference.